FIG. 1 shows a commonly used network arrangement in which a plurality of local computer systems 300 in a local area network (LAN) may access a plurality of remote servers 100 through the Internet. Each remote server 100 may include World Wide Web sites (web sites) that each include a plurality of World Wide Web pages (web pages). Each local computer system may access the remote web sites with web browser software, such as Netscape Navigator.TM., available from Netscape Communications Corporation of Mountain View, Calif.
The World Wide Web is a collection of servers on the Internet that utilize the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is a known application protocol that provides users with access to files (which can be in different formats, such as text, graphics, images, sound, and video) using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is used to transmit data and instructions between a remote computer and a local computer in a form that is understandable to the browser software on the local computer.
Web pages accessed over the Internet, via a browser, commonly are downloaded onto the memory of the local computer system. This enables a user to quickly review web pages that were already downloaded, thereby eliminating the need to repeat the relatively slow process of traversing the Internet to access previously viewed web pages. It also enables a user to review the stored web pages when the local computer system is disconnected from the network (i.e., during disconnect). Many existing web browsers, however, cannot access the locally stored web pages during disconnect unless the user notifies the browser (via a command) that the local computer is disconnected from the network. Similarly, many other existing web browsers must be reconfigured during disconnect by the user to enable access to such stored web pages. It therefore is inconvenient for the user to access the locally stored documents via such browsers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have an apparatus and method that enables a web browser to more efficiently access locally stored documents that were downloaded from a network.